Perfect Son
by The Raisin Girl
Summary: Dean Winchester is a pretty far cry from the perfect son, but not for lack of trying. By God, does she ever try.
1. Four

That's how old she is when her mom dies, pinned to the ceiling and gutted like an animal, mouth agape in a wheezing gasp that should have been a scream as she's engulfed in flames above their heads. She's frozen with terror, unable to look away until her dad scoops her up under one arm and carries her to safety. Her baby brother is crying, but she can't make a sound. She stares up at the house in silence.

When the firemen come to put out the flames, a policeman pulls her dad aside to talk to him. Dad hands Sammy over to her. He's so little, but he feels heavy. Her arms ache with the effort of holding him after only a minute. She holds tighter, fixes her eyes on Dad and refuses to look away, even when a lady policeman comes to ask her questions, too. She won't say a word to anybody.

It's a long time before she says anything at all.


	2. Six

When Dad leaves her and Sammy at Uncle Bobby's and doesn't come back for months. She wishes she were bigger, stronger, like Dad and Uncle Bobby. She wishes she were a grown-up man so Dad could trust her to look after Sammy while he's out hunting.

She tells Bobby her wish, and Bobby laughs at her a little uncomfortably.

"Well honey, you won't ever grow up to be a man. Girls grow up to be women."

For the first time, it occurs to her that there's one big difference between her and the rest of her family. For the first time she wonders if maybe Dad can't trust her to watch Sammy because she's a girl and not a boy. She wonders if Mom would have lived if she'd been a man instead of a woman.

And what if she'd been a boy? Maybe Dad would've trusted her with Sammy then. What if she could have got Sammy out of the house and Dad could've stayed behind to save Mom?


	3. Eight

Dad ignores it at first, when she demands to be called Dean. He flat refuses. He also refuses to let her cut her hair, or teach her anything about guns or cars or hunting.

"You let Sammy hold a gun! He's still a baby!"

Sammy glares at her, and she rolls her eyes.

"Well, you are," she insists to her brother. Turning back to her dad, she pleads, "I'm twice his age, how come you won't teach me anything?"

"Because you're my daughter and I'm doing what's best for you."

It stings like a slap because she hears it for what it is. Because you're a girl. It's because you're a girl.

She never answers to Deanna again. After a solid month of having to drag her places she won't go when told and meeting a stony wall of silence whenever he addresses her, John gives in, bewildered. She's never been obstinate like this before. He decides if she wants to be called Dean that badly, it can't hurt.

He still hits the roof when he comes home one day to find she's gotten hold of a pair of scissors and cut off all her hair by herself.


	4. Twelve

She finally gets Bobby to stop trying to make her play with dolls and teach her to shoot a rifle instead. She takes to it like a fish to water, and then wheedles him into cars, and knives...all the things John refuses to show her no matter how persistently she begs. All the things Sammy won't teach her either. Maybe he doesn't care about knowing them, but she does. She secretly thinks he likes being John's favorite, and knowing things she doesn' , shit on that.

She never asks directly about hunting. She knows that would shut Bobby up quicker than a pit of sand in the rainforest. Instead, she asks around it, all the skills she needs to know that he can teach her.

John leaves her at Bobby's all the time. Sometimes he leaves Sammy, too, but most of the time he takes Sammy with him and leaves her behind anyway. She stopped pitching a fit the minute she realized this gave her unfettered access to Bobby's books. She sneaks one at a time out of his library and hides them under her mattress to read after he thinks she's gone to bed. The words inside are terrifying, but what's more terrifying is that she's been walking around in the world for twelve years without knowing exactly what was out there, or how to fight it.

That's what she tells Bobby when he catches her reading about demonic omens at 4 a.m. He sits down on the bed and gives her a long, hard look, before he sighs and asks her what in hell she thinks she's doing. She makes herself look him in the eye as she answers, even though she feels about an inch tall.

"I'm sorry I snuck around, Bobby. But I gotta know. If all this stuff is really out there, I gotta know about it."

"Most people are happier not knowin', kid," he says sadly.

"Well they're idiots," she says truculently, sticking out her chin. "If all this stuff is out there and people don't even know, how're they supposed to keep safe? How'm I supposed to look after myself?"

"You got me 'n your dad to look after you," Bobby starts, but Dean is having none of that.

"Dad was there when it killed Mom," she interrupts softly, eyes falling to the blankets. "She died anyway."

"Kid..." Bobby starts, and then doesn't seem to know what else to say. Dean looks up at him again, green eyes defiant.

"I'm not gonna sit around and wait for someone else to know everything and keep me safe, if it's all the same to you."

Bobby looks like he can't decide whether he's mad or sad, but he doesn't argue anymore, and after that he lets her do what she wants.

The next time John tries to leave without her, she waits until Bobby's asleep and then sneaks out of the house with a duffel bag full of clothes, rock salt, and holy water, and one of Bobby's burner phones. She manages to hitch hike halfway to Washington state in two days before she calls John's number and tells him where she is. When he shows up at the Motel 6 looking ready to smack her one, she squares her shoulders and plants her feet and looks heartbreakingly, unwittingly, just like her mother.

"You can knock the hell out of me and drag me back to Bobby's if you want, but I'll just run away again. I'll run away every single time you try to leave me there. The only way you're gonna know where I'm at is if I'm with you."

John stares at her for a long moment, like Bobby did, except when John stares it doesn't make her want to squirm anymore.

"Fine," he sighs finally. "Get in the car."

Sammy gives her a hug when John isn't looking, and shows her where he carved his initials into the door, hidden by a flap of fabric so John can't see it. When John leaves them in the motel room that night to do research while he's on a hunt, they sneak out to the Impala with one of Sammy's knives. Dean carves her initials in right beside her brother's, then sits back and smiles in awe at what she's dared to do. Sammy looks at her with shiny eyes.

"So it's gonna be you 'n me from now on, right Dean?"

"Sammy, the Devil himself couldn't drag me away from you."

Sam hesitates for a second. Then:

"Come on," he whispers excitedly, sliding back out of the car. Dean follows, shutting the door carefully behind her. Sam bounds across the parking lot and into the motel room, running over to his duffel and pulling out something wrapped lumpily in newspaper. Looking shy for a second, he hands it over to Dean, who takes it uncertainly.

"Open it," Sammy says.

"What is it?" Dean asks with not a little wonder. She's never gotten a present before in her life.

"Just...open it, alright?"

Dean does, unwrapping it carefully and letting what's inside fall into the open palm of her hand. It's heavy.

"It's supposed to protect you from bad stuff. Bobby gave it to me last time we were over there," Sam says, voice hushed as if afraid someone might be listening. "He wanted me to give it to Dad, for Christmas, but Dad wasn't around so I got mad and hid it. I was gonna give it to him for Father's Day. Or, y'know...whichever day he bothers to show up for, I guess."

The bitterness in her little brother's voice catches Dean off guard. She looks up from the bronze amulet-some kind of horned godhead on a black tether-to study her brother's face.

"Sammy," she says slowly, "you realize our dad's a superhero, right?"

"Uh-huh," Sam says sarcastically. "Tell me one I haven't heard, Dean."

"No, really," Dean sinks down onto the bed behind her, voice earnest as she tries to explain to her brother the one thing that makes every other awful thing okay, the one thing he absolutely has to know about their dad.

"He doesn't go off fighting monsters 'cause he likes it. He does it so other people can be safe. So nobody else ever has to live without their mom. We have the coolest dad in the world, and he needs this way more than I do." She moves to give it back.

"No," Sam insists. "Dad may help other people, but he lies to me and he's mean to you. That's yours."

Dean puts it on reluctantly, but when it falls against the hollow of her throat she smiles.

"Thanks Sammy," she says. "I love it."


	5. Sixteen

She stops cutting her hair and lets it grow, despite the occasional jab from John. She does everything else he even hints at asking, no matter how often she rankles under his criticism, no matter how much she wants to scream at him that she's not a child. She never lets her internal rebellion-which feels a lot like treason-show, even when she thinks he's being too hard on Sammy. She shuts up, does what she's told, tries to keep the peace. But she flat refuses to cut her hair. John throws up his hands.

"First you won't keep it long, now you won't keep it short. You dress like a slut and you act like a boy. Would you make up your mind?!"

Dean doesn't think a change of heart twice in sixteen years is that much to ask, but she doesn't say that out loud. She stands up under the outburst like she always does and lets it roll off her shoulders. Sammy is a tense ball of righteous preteen indignation at her shoulder, but she lets him know without even looking at him to keep his big mouth shut. She doesn't need her little brother defending her virtue, fuck you very much. Anyway, she doesn'treally dress like a slut.

It's just that she's figuring out how the world works, that's all. No matter what she does, no matter how hard she tries, she's never going to be the perfect son. She's always going to be just a girl to John, a girl who can't keep up with the boys. Never mind that she can outrun, outshoot, and out-wrestle Sam. Never mind that she came out of a fight with some asshole at Sammy's last school without a scratch on her while the other kid had two black eyes and needed three stitches in his eyebrow to boot. Never mind that she hasn't cried over a bruise or a scrape since she was eight years old, she's still just a girl. She figures she might as well look like one, especially if it helps them get the job done.

People don't talk to John. He freaks them out, with the way he walks like a predator and looks at everything with this dark intensity, like he's trying to decide whether or not he needs to kill it. People only talk down to Sam, because he's still just a kid, and they like to watch what they say in front of him too, so that's no use. But her? People have been talking to her since she was fourteen, without blinking.

Dean doesn't look sixteen, and she knows it. She revels in it. She's fit, a little too solidly built and broad shouldered to look like the typical girly girl, but still curvy in all the right places. She knows what effect she has on men, and likes it. She takes advantage of it as often as possible, wears her jeans loose and low on her hips and her shirts tight and cut just to there. Just enough so they get a glimpse of the goods when she leans in. She doesn't need makeup but she paints her nails dark red, that extra little touch of femininity that puts people at ease without their realizing it. Someone who has time to paint their nails can't be a threat.

Between her big green eyes and just the suggestion of freckles across her tanned face, she pretty much gets whatever she wants. All she has to do is walk in a room, pick out her target, unzip her jacket and smile.

John hates it, berates her for it constantly. One night she walks out of a bar after half an hour of chatting up a man old enough to be John's father, and he snaps at her, "I didn't raise you to be a whore."

"No," she says, "you raised me to be a hunter." And hands him a slip of paper: a map to the remains they need to salt and burn. He takes it with a scowl and nary a word of praise, but after that he lets her do as she pleases. They get twice the research done in half the time, and the next time John goes out to hunt he takes both his children with him.

They pull up to the woods and John kills the engine. He tells Sammy to wait in the car and motions for Dean to follow him. Dean gets out of the car, feeling an adrenaline rush so powerful she's almost dizzy with it.

Dean's first real hunt. It's terrifying, but John's trust in allowing her along is exhilarating. They track down the werewolf that's been chewing on the locals and Dean puts a silver-tipped arrow through its heart with a crossbow. John actually whoops.

"That's my girl!"

It's the proudest moment of her life so far.

They drag the body into the woods together and burn it to a crisp while Sammy waits in the car. Dean sits there and looks into the fire, smelling the acrid smoke and thinking. I'm sixteen years old. Kids my age are worried about pimples and prom dates while I'm seeing things they'll never even know, never even dream of.

After that it's like a drug to her, the hunt, the kill, and her dad's looks of bemused pride. That bemusement quickly fades into expectation, certainty and trust. Dean treasures that trust like nothing else she has ever possessed. She stops agreeing with Sammy when he back-talks Dad. When he tells her he wants to play soccer, she gapes at him like a fish.

"Soccer? The hell you wanna play soccer for, Sammy? Anyway, when'd you have time? We got work to do."


	6. Seventeen

She loses her virginity-whatever that means-to one of the guys she hustled at pool while she and Dad were taking a break from a hunt to make a little cash to fill the gas tank. His name is Robb. He's probably pushing forty, but he's nice and pretty good-looking in an older-man kind of way. Dean decides that she likes sex. It's fun, and it's easy. It's also the only place her confidence has ever been admired instead of deemed useful, but unfit for her gender.

She doesn't tell Sammy, and she definitely doesn't tell her dad, although she suspects he might know. A week later he gives her a fake ID that says she's 21, then takes her to a bar and buys them each a glass of scotch. She takes hers down without coughing, and he looks so proud again. That night becomes one of her best memories, far more important than Robb or what they did together.


	7. Twenty

For the first time in years, she feels the need to get away from her family and clear her head a little. Dad lets her go without protest; he knows she'll be back, the trust between them is absolute. With Sam things are a little shaky; he makes her promise over and over. She probably should see what he's thinking then, but she doesn't. Two years from now his departure will still hit her like a bag of bricks.

She hotwires a Camaro-it's no Impala, but it'll have to do-and drives west while her dad and brother head south. They'll be in Florida clearing up some business with a banshee, then meet her in Ohio when they're done. That gives her five days to explore the world on her own. She decides to see five states, but she ends up spending all her time in Cicero, Indiana.

Lisa Braeden is a yoga teacher. She has big eyes, long dark hair, and a smile that does things to Dean's insides that she doesn't understand. And it's funny, she's only ever hit on men before; she never even gave other women a second thought.

After spending the three bendiest days of her life in Lisa's loft, Dean wonders why on Earth she never thought to go for women.

She doesn't tell Sam or Dad any of that, though. Nothing has ever been said, but for all that her life's foundations are more or less sinking sand, she still knows where the lines in that sand are drawn. She spent far too long earning Dad's trust to just blow it on something as silly as sex with the wrong people. Anyway, it's not like it'll ever be a problem. She doesn't stay in one place long enough for anybody to get attached, or to feel anything more than passing interest herself.


	8. Twenty-Two

She should have known this was gonna happen. She should've been able to stop it, or at least stop the giant fight that's broken her family in half. She knew Sammy wasn't really happy, knew he didn't take to hunting the way she did. There was that time he ran away, the way he really wanted to stay at that one school longer…all kinds of signs and she missed them. He and Dad haven't gotten along since he was thirteen or fourteen, and he was mad at Dad long before that.

I saw it. Didn't I? Why didn't I do anything?

Sam is gone. He's hopped a bus to California to go to college, and after what he and Dad said to each other, Dean doesn't think Sam'll ever come back. Dad is on a bender like she's never seen before, and she doesn't know what to do.

She knows what to do even less when she wakes up to an empty motel room. The car's gone, and there's a message on her phone.

"I'm gone to get your brother. Back in a few days."

When he does come back, Sam is nowhere to be seen. Dad gets out and slams the door of the Impala so hard it makes Dean wince. He pushes past her into the hotel room and throws his duffel on the unclaimed bed. He just stands there, staring at it. Dean is afraid to move.

"Saw your brother," Dad finally grunts. Dean doesn't reply. She waits.

"He looked okay. Real happy, actually. Was laughin' at a table with a bunch of other kids his age. Already made friends. He was always good with people."

His voice is suspiciously gruff. He clears his throat.

"Dean," he says, "I'm sorry. This is not the life I wanted for you. You know you can get out of it, any time you want. You don't have to be a hunter to be my kid."

Dean doesn't know what to say, at first. She doesn't know what to do with the fact that Sam isn't coming back, that Dad saw him but didn't make him come home. Did you even talk to him?

"Dad," she chokes out finally. "I happen to like being a hunter."

Her dad chuckles, and it's the saddest sound Dean has ever heard.

"I know," he says. "Sorry about that."


	9. Twenty-Four

Cassie Robinson is the architect of Dean's personal hell. She's beautiful. She's intelligent. She's angry, too, deep down at her core, and although Dean doesn't know what she's angry about, she certainly relates to the sentiment.

Dean only talks to her at first because she's working a case at Ohio University. Cassie happens to be one of many students she questions that day. But the next day, Dean goes back to the student center and finds her again, for no real reason except to talk to her some more. She comes back again the next day as well, even though Cassie will barely speak to her and regards her with complete suspicion and not a little dislike.

She finishes the job within a week but stays two, thankful that Dad isn't around for this one. She scours local newspapers for the possibility of a job nearby and lucks out once, twice, four times before she has to go more than a full day's drive to justify her continued stasis. Her routes always seems to criss cross over Athens, Ohio. She tells herself it's a convenient place to stop and rest between jobs. She runs into Cassie in the student center a few more times, tries to start a conversation. Tries to make her laugh.

Cassie remains a molten core of fury wrapped in a prickly outer shell that rebuffs Dean at every turn until her brain is running in circles like a mad dog, practically howling for just a second of Cassie's attention. When she finally gets it, it's not exactly what she was hoping for.

"You know, I don't get you, Dean," Cassie bursts out at her one night. "You pull into town and hang around asking people weird questions, you drive off every few days in that old black muscle car that just screamsovercompensation. You're obviously not an idiot but you act like some muscle-bound alpha male trapped in a woman's body. What is your deal? Why won't you leave me alone?!"

Dean kisses her, then gets smacked. Then gets kissed back. It evens out.

She finds out that having Cassie like her isn't much easier than having Cassie hate her. It's still prickly and too-hot, and ninety percent of the time she wonders if she's just become a glutton for punishment. They fight and they fuck, and they're brilliant at both. It's everything else they find difficult, the sharing of feelings and the honesty.

Dean's half out of her mind in love, though, so she decides to give it a try anyway. She hates lying to Cassie, making excuses for what she does and where she goes. She's never wanted to be honest with someone so much in her entire life, never wanted someone to know her, really know her whole story and love that, and not the lie. So when the jobs within a day's drive finally run out and she knows she's going to have to leave for a lot longer this time, Dean tries, voice wavering and hands shaking, to tell Cassie the truth.

Too bad Cassie thinks she's a lunatic afterward. Dean leaves Athens, Ohio in a cloud of oily black smoke and bitter regret, and she is never making that mistake again. Never. She's not built for the All-American Apple Pie Life, not even the strange Sapphic interpretation of she'd almost had with Cassie; people like her are better off keeping their distance, staying unattached.


	10. Thirty-Five, Part 1

_All Roads Lead to the Same Destination..._

She knows before she even opens her eyes. She doesn't need to pull herself upright, cross the room and go through the bathroom door, stare into the mirror. She does these things, but they aren't necessary. She can feel it.

She feels strong. She feels free. Was there something heavy weighing on her mind before? She can't quite grasp the feeling anymore. The guilt that has crowded her soul for as long as she can remember has cleared away like so much morning mist, burned out of existence by the rising sun.

That's what this feels like: something huge and hot and indomitable rising inside, scorching her soul to the clean, uniform shade of gorgeous black she sees staring out of her eyes in the mirror.

It aches for that first split second, to see herself but not herself. Then she blinks, and the black is replaced by her own familiar green. She smiles.

Dean wanders back into her room to find Crowley still standing by her bed; he cocks a quizzical eyebrow at her grinning face. But now Dean can see beyond that, beyond the short, stocky, aging body, the receding hair and the watery eyes. Crowley, the real Crowley, is hideous...and magnificent. He is darkness and cunning and deception, and sadistic joy, mingled with something unfamiliar and vaguely unpleasant that Dean once would have understood as regret.

"Have a nice nap, squirrel?" Crowley rasps at her. "Feeling well-rested?"

"Like Rip Van-fuckin'-Winkle," she snarks back. "Nice little speech you gave over my corpse there, Crowley. I still haven't decided if I'm gonna kick your ass or not, but the answer to my next question will go a long way toward making up my mind. Where's Sam?"

"Still holed up in your old cell, trying to drag me out of hiding to save you." The King of Hell grins, and it's almost more fond than condescending. "Damn disrespectful to call a man away from a wake like this. Clearly I've been getting too cozy with you boys. Ah well, if you give a moose a muffin. Shall we?"

"We ain't doing nothin'," Dean says, amiable tone clashing with the harsh words. "I'm gonna go tell my brother to stop freaking out and put away the candles, and you're gonna figure out what the hell happened to Cas."

Crowley sighs. "That's Winchester gratitude for you," he grouses. "Fine. You go change the baby, I'll go save your boyfriend."

Dean rolls her eyes. Once upon a time-maybe less than a couple of hours ago-the boyfriend jab would have gotten under her skin. Right now, she doesn't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks Cas is to her. She just wants his feathery ass back home in one piece, so they can start figuring out how to keep his vessel from burning down around his ears along with his stolen grace. That is without a doubt the next order of business.

She leaves Crowley to it and goes in search of Sam. She finds him right where Crowley said he would be; kneeling in front of a roughly-drawn pentagram in the room he and Cas had tried to lock her in earlier. His shoulders are slumped in defeat. She smiles a little sadly, a swell of affection sitting in her throat like a stone, bitter and not entirely comprehensible to her. Clearly being a quick-burn demon didn't quite level out the human emotions.

"Crowley's busy," she says, unable to resist. It's worth it. Sam jumps about a foot off the floor, all arms and legs and whirling hair, and then he's nearly barreling her over with a gigantic hug that might once have felt like it would crush her lungs. Now Sam feels fragile to her, despite his size. She's pretty sure she could snap his neck just by thinking hard enough about it...and she studiously tries her best not to think about it at all, because apparently, some things apply to Dean Winchester no matter what color her soul has turned. Hurting Sam is still anathema to her.

"Dean!" Sam chokes out above her head, voice thick with tears. "I thought you were dead!"

"You are such a liar," she says. Sam pulls back, confusion writ large on his features and tear tracks drying on his cheeks.

"What are you talking about?" Sam asks. Dean smiles.

"All that b.s. about letting me die if our positions were reversed. You were trying to summon Crowley, weren't you?" Her tone is half-accusatory, half a deep, abiding affection for her big, dumb brother.

"Of course I was trying to summon Crowley," Sam shoots back. "What'd you expect me to do, just let you die? After the things I said to you, after you...after you fought so hard...after everything?" Sam is choking out his words, half angry and half desperately sad. Dean decides to put him out of his misery.

"Sam, it's alright. I know. Look...you were right about some things, before. And we need to talk it all out." Somehow, the thought of an honest conversation isn't the horror show her mind always made it into before. "But right now, we got other stuff that needs to be handled."

Sam takes a deep breath, visibly reigning in his emotions-not least of all his surprise that Dean seems to want to talk-and nods. "Okay," he says. "Okay. Right. Such as?"

"Crowley's trying to find out what happened in Heaven," Dean says, turning and leading the way out into the main part of the bunker, heading for the tables where they'd spent countless hours tracking omens and researching ways to defeat Abaddon. She plops gracelessly into one of the chairs, turning so that she can prop her arms against the hard wooden back, legs splayed out to either side. "If he can, he's gonna get Cas and bring him here. In the meantime, there are some things you need to know, things I think will be easier coming from me, without an audience."

"Okay..." Sam says, sounding uncertain. He isn't sitting down. He looks at Dean with narrowed eyes. "Like...what kind of things?"

"Sammy..." Dean sighs. She runs a hand through her tangled hair. There's still some blood matted in the back of it from Metatron slamming her against that wall, one of the many times. "Look...you know how this works. These resurrections. There's always a price."

"I know," Sam says, sounding stubborn. "I was ready to pay it."

"And you know I don't want you to do that. I'm glad you didn't have to." Dean sighs again, not sure how to proceed. How do you tell your brother you're a demon? Maybe even the demon? That there are things bubbling under the surface of your skin, things that have always been there, just no longer kept in check by your humanity? Things like the kind of twisted peace that only comes from a blade in the hand and the certain knowledge that you are the one in control, that the pain will come from you and that you will feel none yourself? How do you make him understand that somehow, impossibly, you're still you as well? Maybe even a better you...Dean doesn't remember the last time she felt this good, this at home in her own skin. Not to mention this in control of that driving urge that comes from the Mark of Cain...the urge to watch the light go out of a living thing's eyes. She suppresses a shudder.

"Just spit it out, Dean," Sam says finally. "You're freaking me out. Whatever it is, we'll handle it. Like we always do."

"That's just it, Sam," Dean says, a note of sadness creeping into her voice. "This isn't something we've ever handled before."

"Just. Tell me," Sam says.

"Fine." Dean stands up. "Fine." She squares her shoulders and looks Sam in the eyes.

"I want you to remember," she says, emphasizing every word, "the last few minutes, okay? I want you to think about that and remember that I'm still me."

"Tell me," Sam says again, though there's a note of dread creeping through his voice, like he knows what's coming.

"Okay," Dean says. "Here goes nothin'." She closes her eyes and braces herself. She hears Sam draw in a breath, waiting for the hammer to fall.

She opens her eyes.


	11. Twenty-Six

_Nine Years Ago_

Truth be told, it's the last place Dean wants to be, the last person she wants to go to for help. Things haven't been great between her and Sammy since he left. At first she tried to call him, but the longer he was gone it seemed the less they had in common. Then again, they haven't been on the same page for years, not since Dean somehow became Dad's protégé while Sam was relegated to black sheep status by his obvious and vehement desire for a "normal life."

I should've stood up for him more, she thinks bitterly. But then again, why'd he have to go civilian all of a sudden? They were partners, once upon a time. They stood shoulder to shoulder behind their dad, and occasionally against him. Sammy was the only person Dean felt right with, the only person who never judged her or told her to act like a real girl. Even when he started to acknowledge how useful she could be, John never gave her a moment like that night in the woods with the werewolf again. He never stopped treating it like a backhanded compliment. She was a damn good hunter, for a girl. Couldn't have asked for a better son, said with throaty laughter and gleaming teeth. A sick feeling in her gut that she ignored because she so desperately wanted it to be the praise and the pride her skills had earned in the beginning.

Meanwhile Sam wanted to play soccer, and Dean had teased him for it relentlessly. Meanwhile Sam refused to cut his hair, and Dean had laughed when John said he might have a daughter after all. Meanwhile they confided in each other less and less, until Dean was unprepared for the final argument that sent her baby brother careening out the front door and into the world without even a glance backward. John wasn't surprised, so why was she? She was supposed to know Sammy better than John. She was supposed to know him better than anyone.

She tried to visit him at school once, but he said not to bother, it was finals week and he was too busy. She tried again at Christmas, but he said not to take the trouble; the world still needed saving and it's not like they ever really celebrated Christmas anyway. Apparently, exchanging stolen gifts in a dark hotel room while John was out hunting and It's A Wonderful Life played on mute in the background didn't count. Dean didn't try again after that. She stopped calling. If he noticed, he didn't bother to pick up the phone and remedy the situation.

It's been two years since they spoke last, and that thought makes her simmer with rage because for all Sam knows, she and John could be dead. Salted, burned to ashes, and buried, or worse, and he wouldn't even have a clue. Would he even care?

Dean reaches forward, turning Led Zeppelin up louder, loud enough to drown out her own furious thoughts.

* * *

She arrives just as the sun is setting, and parks the car under the shade of some trees near the end of the block where she knows Sam's been living for the past year and a half. Just because they don't talk doesn't mean she'd ever lose track of the little shit.

She shakes her head when she sees Sam come home around midnight, laughing with his arm wrapped around a petite blonde girl who clings to his side like she might float away if they allow any airspace between them. Dean rolls her eyes, annoyed, at the way Sam walks right up and unlocks the door, opens it, and goes inside with the girl without even looking left or right, without a glance over his shoulder, without even the cursory attempt to make sure the area is safe. Clearly, the kid's gone totally soft.

Dean bets she can get into that flimsy little California tiki hut without even bringing out the heavy-duty lockpicking kit. She slides a small penknife from the duffel in the passenger's seat and slips it into her front left pants pocket, slides out of the car, and shuts the door as quietly as she can manage. She's down the sidewalk, up the steps, and through one of the side windows with a flick of the knife, quick as a shadow and twice as quiet.

She does make a little noise once she's inside, if only to give Sam a chance to prove he isn't a total civilian. By the time Sam storms into the room with a baseball bat in hand, she's sitting pretty at the little kitchen table, legs crossed and elbows propped on the scratched surface with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a gun in the other, cocked and pointed directly at his chest.

"Rise 'n shine, Sammy," she says musically.

"Dean?! What're you doing here?" He lowers the bat and she tucks the gun back into the waistband of her jeans, raising her glass with a grin.

"Got thirsty," she teases. "Man, Sam, you're gettin' a little rusty. I coulda robbed this place blind and you would've just kept snoring."

"Dean," Sam says again, in a truly horrible approximation of John Winchester's I-mean-business-boy voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean sits up and uncrosses her legs, leaning forward a little.

"Okay, all right," she says, trying to keep the bravado in her voice. If Sam doesn't help her with this, are they even a family anymore? "We need to talk."

"It's called a phone," Sam says, voice lifting at the end as if it's a question. Clearly the kid's been in California too damn long.

"If I'd've called, would you've picked up?"

Before Sam thinks up an answer to that, there's a rustling from the darkness in the hallway, and a soft, sleep-muffled voice calls out.

"Sam? Who's—"

"Jess, hey," Sam says, straightening his shoulders and softening his expression as he turns to the newcomer and pulls her protectively against his side with one arm. If Dean were just a few years younger, she would make a very audible gagging noise. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."

Dean grins tightly, attempting to work out in her mind how her geek kid brother managed to get a girl like this to even look his way. Sure, she supposes he's a sweet kid…but he's also about six and a half feet of gangly awkward doofus, and she's seen that doofus try to dance. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.

"Wait," says the ridiculously pretty girl, "Your sister, Deanna?" Dean's smile fades.

"Dean," she says. "Nice shirt," she nods at the Smurfs t-shirt Jessica is wearing, earning her a smile. "You know," she says, grinning, "I gotta tell you…you are completely out of my brother's league."

"Oh, I know," she says lightly. "So does he." She rewards Dean's cheeky grin with a smirk of her own, earning her a stony glare from Sam. Dean clears her throat.

"Well, it's great to meet you, Jessica, but I gotta borrow your boyfriend here. Talk about some private family business."

"No," Sam speaks up. His face is set in its stubbornest lines, and he makes a big show of throwing his doofus arm across Jessica's shoulders. Dean barely manages to refrain from rolling her eyes. It must be love.

"Whatever you want to say," he says, chin jutting out and voice sounding entirely too self-righteous to be allowed, "you can say it in front of her."

Dean does roll her eyes.

"Okay, fine," she says. "Um…Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

Sam sighs.

"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later."

Dean wants to punch her brother in his smug, holier-than-thou face. What happened to you? How is this the same kid who used to know Dean so well he could communicate with her across a darkened room with a widening of the eyes or a single jerk of his head? Does Sam actually think Dean would run crying to him for help just because Dad went off on a bender?

Guess you're too good for us now, huh, Sammy? Now that you're a college boy with your perfect girlfriend and your yuppies-in-training apartment. Dad's a drunk and I'm an embarrassment, is that it? Well, fuck you. See how you like this.

"Dad," she says carefully, meting out careful emphasis with every word, "is on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days."

She tries not to enjoy watching his face fall too much.


	12. Twenty-Eight

Dean sits on a low wooden stool, elbows propped on her knees and hands dangling uselessly at the wrists. She can't seem to lift her head. By now she thinks she could have counted every speck of dirt on the filthy floor of this hollowed-out shell of a building. It was once a hunting cabin, maybe. Now it smells like desertion and, increasingly, like death. She breathes through her mouth until she's convinced she can actually taste it, and that's so much worse.

Bobby left, reluctantly, some unfathomable length of time ago. If she had any emotions to spare she would feel bad about the way she'd yelled at him. As it is, she feels nothing beyond the white noise of pain pounding behind her eyelids. Her eyes won't let her cry. They prick and sting like her tear ducts are pouring sand instead of salt water. It feels like she's been here for days, maybe decades. Like she'll be here forever, stuck in this moment. Time can't move forward. Time stopped when Sam stopped breathing in her arms.

She stares at him, lying there, stretched out and cold. She will never understand how anyone could think death looks peaceful; death is not peaceful. Sam's death was quick, but violent. A moment of mercy that got him quite literally stabbed in the back. Sinking to the ground, mouth open, eyes already losing their light by the time she reached him. Head lolling atop his shoulders, gaze unfocused. He couldn't even look at her, she's not sure he could see her at all. But she held him anyway, held all six foot four of him close and prayed to things she didn't even believe in for the strength to somehow keep him together. She felt it the moment he left her.

His face is blank. There's no peace there, no illusion of sleep. Sam is _gone_. And Dean, for the first time in her relatively short life, has no idea what she's supposed to do.

"You know," she mumbles, "when we were little, I kinda hated you sometimes. Wasn't your fault, you didn't do anything...I just...I wanted so bad for Dad to keep me around, to teach me stuff like he taught you. I wanted him to trust me." She took a breath that hurt.

"You were like my best friend once. Always had my back. Stood up for me with dad. You 'n' me against the world, right? Man, I was so mad when you took off. Felt like you abandoned me...abandoned us. Your family. You know Dad gave me the car right after you left? I was so mad, at both of you. It felt like he did it to spite you. It wasn't bad enough you got to be the son...you had to go and take my claim to fame, too? I was the disappointment in this family, Sam! That was my job, not yours!"

She's half-shouting at her brother's lifeless body, and her throat closes up around the noise like it's reminding her to show some respect for the dead. She gasps, coughs. Presses the heels of both hands to her eyes and tries to push in the aching that's spreading all over her, the cold throb of anger that isn't right, isn't fair. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet.

"I used to ask you what happened like it was somethin' you did, but I know it was me. It's like once I got what I wanted I was so scared to lose it...I'm sorry, Sammy." Her voice falls to a broken whisper. "I'm so, so sorry. This is all my fault. Maybe if I'd stood up for you more. Maybe if I wasn't always so ready to ask how high when Dad said jump. Maybe if I hadn't let things get so messed up between us...I don't know."

She stops. Breathes, in and out. Feels the anger building itself back up with every inhale. First John, now Sam? Why should she be the only survivor? She's not strong enough for this, fight-the-good-fight, keep-on-keepin'-on. She doesn't want to do it all alone. She feels like a whiny child and she _hates_ this. She would give anything, _anything_, to switch places with Sam right now.

The thought freezes her, catches the breath in her throat.

She could do it. It's been done before. Hell, it's practically a Winchester Family Tradition by now. The only reason she's even sitting here, taking up space, is that John made a deal to save her. She could do the same for Sam. She could...

Dean raises her head to look into Sam's face, searching for...something. Resolve, maybe? The hint that he might forgive her for what she's contemplating? His features stay blank, empty of life, of Sam. She can't even conjure up a memory of another expression right now. It twists her stomach and steels her nerves. She stands.

"Y'know, I've been a lousy excuse for a sister, and 'm'sorry. But I'm gonna make it up to you. And you'll find out, sooner or later, 'cause you're a nosy little fucker and smart as hell...and maybe you'll be pissed when you do." She pauses. Deep breath.

"But what else am I supposed to do, Sammy?"

Her brother gives no answer. She closes her eyes to the sight of his lifeless body and turns to go. She has a demon to summon.


	13. Twenty-Nine: Castiel

There's a familiar feel to the air: like being stuck under a thundercloud just before the bottom falls out, the heat-lightning prickle that raises the fine hairs all along her arms. Dean suppresses a shiver and plants her feet, wondering for the umpteenth time whether this wasn't the worst idea she's ever had.

"You sure you did the ritual right?" She asks Bobby needlessly; she can feel that he did. Something is circling above their heads, just waiting to touch down. Her stomach clenches. Bobby shoots her an unimpressed look.

"Sorry," she says. "Touchy, huh?"

Before Bobby can respond, the warehouse comes alive, rattling as though shaken by a giant's hand. Dean grips her shotgun and backs up, closer to the inner wall. _Hope one or two of these protection spells is worth a damn._

"Wishful thinking," she calls to Bobby over the din. "Maybe it's just the wind?"

As if on cue, the doors are blown open, nearly off their hinges. Dean braces herself for whatever monstrosity will enter.

A shadow moves into the dim light of the warehouse. Resolves itself into a man. An ordinary-looking man in a cheap business suit and a badly-fitted tan trench coat. The lights blow one by one as he passes under them, showering sparks down around him that he ignores, completely unfazed. His eyes find Dean's and lock there, transfixing blue that seems to be searching underneath her skin. The thunder-lightning smell he brings with him reminds her of the first breath of air when she clawed her way out of her own untimely grave. She tightens the grip on her gun till her knuckles ache.

Whatever it is, it's not human anymore. Dean takes aim and opens fire, hearing Bobby do the same beside her. The bullets and rock salt hit their target like a brick wall, but they don't stop him. They don't even slow his pace. Dean switches the gun for Ruby's knife, holding it surreptitiously behind her back as the creature that dragged her from Hell approaches her.

"Who are you?" She demands. It fixes her with an indecipherable stare and answers. His clear, careful voice falls quietly into the silence, matter-of-fact and yet ringing with an almost righteous authority, deep and rough like it's been dragged over gravel and glass. His words wrap her insides with a cold, confirming dread.

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."

"Yeah," Dean husks out, "Thanks for that." She steps forward, right into this thing's space, and plunges the knife into its chest without hesitation.

It looks down. Then up. She almost imagines there's a hint of exasperated amusement playing at the corners of its mouth as it wraps a hand around the knife and casually pulls it out without any signs of pain, allowing it to clatter uselessly to the floor. Dean staggers back a step, unable to quite comprehend what she just witnessed. Nothing had ever walked away from the point of that knife before. She watches with a numb panic as Bobby lunges at the thing from behind. It grabs his weapon without even looking, swinging the old man around and pressing two fingers, almost gently, to his forehead. Dean's eyes go wide with horror as Bobby crumples soundlessly to the warehouse floor.

Then the creature's attention is back on her, without missing a beat.

"We need to talk, Dean." It says. "Alone."

Dean glares at the thing as she crouches to check Bobby's pulse. It's there, and steady.

"Your friend's alive," the thing says to her, all serenity.

"Who are you?" She snaps, standing slowly.

"Castiel," it says simply, leafing idly through one of the books from which they'd taken their protective glyphs. Dean figured that much.

"I mean," she said, with a calmness and patience she certainly didn't feel, "what are you?"

Castiel turns to her. "I'm an Angel of the Lord," he says seriously.

Dean actually scoffs. Audibly. "Get the hell outta hear," she says. "There's no such thing."

"This is your problem, Dean," he says, sounding long-suffering. "You have no faith." It-he-turns to face Dean, so that his back is to the warehouse wall. Lightning flashes, from everywhere and nowhere, and Dean's eyes go wide at the shadows it reveals: a huge pair of wings, extending from the man's shoulders and across the entire wall of the warehouse. Each one looks to be at least twice as long as he is tall. Dean swallows, hard. Anger swirls in her gut like acid.

"Some angel you are," she all but growls. "Burnin' out that poor woman's eyes."

"I warned her not to spy on my true form," Castiel says. "It can be...overwhelming to humans, as can my real voice. But you already knew that."

Dean gapes like a fish for a moment.

"You mean...at the gas station? And the motel? That was you...talking?" Castiel merely nods.

"Buddy, next time lower the volume," Dean snarks. She feels some of the feeling coming back to her legs. Whatever this thing is, whatever Castiel's agenda, he doesn't seem inclined to kill her outright. At least not right now. She relaxes, just a bit.

"That was my mistake," Castiel is saying. "Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong."

It makes her feel inexplicably defensive, and like an idiot for feeling that way. "So what visage are you in now, huh?" She snaps at him. "Holy tax accountant?"

"This?" Castiel looks down at the body he's wearing, gesturing as though it's an outfit he threw on that morning without much thought. Which is probably not that far off the mark, Dean thinks, feeling sick.

"This is a vessel," Castiel confirms.

"You're possessing some poor bastard?" She tenses again, wary. Only one thing she knows of possesses humans.

"He's a devout man," Castiel says, as though that should explain everything. "He actually prayed for this."

Dean snorts. "Yeah...I'm not buyin' what you're sellin'. I'll ask again: who are you really?"

Castiel frowns as though he doesn't understand. "I told you." Still matter-of-fact, as though it should all be so obvious. He talks like he's used to everyone taking his word as absolute gospel. Which probably, he is. Dean really wants to gank this fucker.

"Okay, so tell me this, then, smartass: why would an angel rescue me from Hell?"

Castiel looks at her steadily. She looks back, determined not to be the one who blinks first.

"Good things do happen, Dean," he says. Dean smirks.

"Not in my experience."

Castiel steps forward at that, into her space. He tilts his head, somehow managing to look up at her even though he has a good three or four inches on her, at least. When he speaks, his voice is almost gentle.

"What's the matter?" He says. "You don't think you deserve to be saved?"

Dean reels inside, stays stock still outside. Her jaw clenches. She blinks.

"Why'd you do it," she asks, voice thick.

"Because God commanded it," says Castiel, all gentleness abruptly gone. His words are laden once more with a righteous certainty Dean both envies and hates, eyes alight with religious fervor. "Because we have work for you."


	14. Thirty: Anna

Anna Milton is sweet, and fragile, just a nice girl from a small town going to school for journalism. She also happens to hear the voices of angels, and if that-a perfectly nice, ordinary girl who never hurt anyone being driven over the edge by a constant line into Angel Radio-doesn't prove that God had a sick sense of humor, Dean wonders what the hell else would do it.

Of course, a day and change later Anna turns out to be a fallen angel, and through the shock of having her worldview rocked yet again, Dean thinks she may like her more for that small detail.

What she doesn't understand is why on God's green Earth, no pun intended, Anna would want to have anything to do with humanity. For all that Dean's always waxing truculently defensive about her own species' right to survive, her first-hand experience with life has been less than stellar: blood, death, darkness, and pain. Why would an angel want to subject themselves to all of that?

She should probably have expected, after her limited interaction with Cas and his dicks-with-wings-on-parade band of brothers, that Anna's approach would be obnoxiously zen and glass-half-full.

"There's loyalty," Anna tells her. "Forgiveness."

"Pain," Dean counters.

"Chocolate cake," Anna shoots back.

"Guilt." Dean thinks she has it nailed on that one.

"Sex," says Anna. Dean tries and fails to suppress a grin.

"Yeah, you got me there," she says, but her heart's not quite in it. Anna must sense that, because she steps closer, looking up at her, face earnest.

"I mean it. Every emotion, Dean. Even the bad ones. It's why I fell." She looks away, wistful. "It's why I'd give anything not to have to go back. Anything."

"Feelings are overrated, if you ask me," Dean says.

"Beats being an angel." The bitterness in Anna's voice is surprising, sharper than anything Dean's seen from her so far. She still looks so small, so pale and breakable. It's hard to believe there's an ageless being of pure energy and power living behind her eyes.

"How's that possible?" Dean questions her, really wanting to understand. "You guys are powerful, and perfect. You don't doubt yourselves, or God, or anything."

"Perfect," Anna scoffs. "Like a marble statue. Cold...no choice, only obedience." Anna turns her head to pin Dean with her eyes, an unspoken challenge in her tone. "Dean, do you know how many angels have actually _seen_ God? Seen his face?"

Dean shrugs. "All of you?"

"Four angels. Four. And I'm not one of them."

That brings Dean up short. "That's it? Well then how do you even know that there is a God?"

"We have to take it on faith," Anna says. "Which we're killed if we don't have."

Dean doesn't know what to say to that. She feels like an ignorant child, talking about how bad she's got it to someone who's lived an existence longer than several generations of her family, under threat of death for not _believing_ hard enough. Anna continues, seemingly oblivious to Dean's apologetic discomfort, pouring her frustration into the silence between them.

"I was stationed on earth for two thousand years, just...watching...silent, invisible. Out on the road, sick for home...waiting on orders from an unknowable father I can't begin to understand."

And suddenly, they're on common ground. Dean suppresses a mirthless laugh; it isn't funny, not really. It's ironic, though, that she of all people could look at an angel and say to her "I know how you feel."

She hates it when people say that to her, even when it's true. So she stays quiet, just listening.

* * *

Dean wants to scream, or punch something, or both. She forces herself not to clench her fists too tightly around the book she's holding; it's old, and would probably crumble or tear under that kind of pressure. But her hands itch with the kind of restless anger best exorcised by breaking things. They've tried; they've done everything they can do...but they can't save this one, this angel that wanted to be a normal girl, who saw something beautiful in the mess that was humanity...

"Dean." Anna's voice pulls Dean out of the angry swirl inside her brain. She breathes deeply through her nose once and tries to school her expression into something supportive and reassuring before looking up to see Anna's slight frame moving toward her in the blue darkness.

"Hey," she says, "holding up okay?"

"Trying." Anna's voice sounds strained, but there's a calm set to her face that Dean doesn't like. She wonders if Anna's going cold already even without her Grace, the memory of what she once was turning her slowly back into an emotionless statue.

"A little scared, I guess," she admits then, and Dean tries not to take a breath of relief. "So, um...Dean. I just wanted to thank you."

"For what?" Dean asks, incredulous. She hadn't been able to actually do anything.

"Everything," Anna shrugs, looking out and down at nothing in particular. "You guys...you didn't have to help me-"

"Hey," Dean interrupts, unable to listen to any more. "Let's can the 'thanks for trying' speech, alright? Don't thank me for helping you when I...we couldn't..." she trails off into silence, unable to finish the thought. She's not even sure who the good guys are anymore, but this feels like a battle fought on two fronts, and lost. She's not going to be able to bury this one, not like the others she's failed to save. She's going to dream of Anna's face, she knows it. She's never going to forgive herself for losing this particular fight, and she doesn't even know why it matters so much more than the others. She doesn't think it should, and that just makes it all even worse.

"I don't know," Anna says, sounding very small. "Maybe I don't deserve to be saved."

"Don't talk like that," Dean tells her, frowning. Anna looks up at her, the calm mask from before chased away by uncertainty and sadness, and fear.

"I disobeyed. Lucifer disobeyed. It's our murder one, and I _knew_ it. Maybe I gotta pay."

"Yeah, well, we've all done things we gotta pay for," Dean mutters, not quite looking her in the eye. What is she doing, breathing the same air as an _angel_? In particular this angel, who is everything Dean could have ever imagined angels to be, back when she believed they were just nice stories people told each other for comfort.

"I have to tell you something, Dean," Anna says after a moment, mood abruptly shifting back to that discomfiting calm, but with a hint of something else...concern, maybe? "But I don't think you're going to like it."

"Okay," she says warily. "What?"

"About a week ago, I heard the angels talking. About you...what you did in Hell." Dean stiffens, mouth open to cut Anna off right there, but she plows on ahead without giving her a chance.

"Dean, I know. It wasn't your fault. You should forgive yourself." She's stepping close, right up into Dean's personal space, looking up at her with cool blue eyes that promise forgiveness Dean doesn't think she deserves. Not for this.

"Anna," she husks out around the sudden lump in her throat. "I don't...I don't want...I can't talk about that."

"I know," Anna says softly. "But when you can, you have people that want to help. You're not alone, Dean. That's all I'm trying to say."

And then Anna's leaning up, and in, pressing a soft, sweet kiss to Dean's lips that Dean is almost too surprised to return. It only lasts a second, but when they pull apart Dean can feel the warmth rising in her cheeks.

"What was that for?" She has to ask.

"You know," Anna says, almost coy. "Our last night on Earth and all that."

Dean can't suppress the small grin at that. "Oh, _c'mon_," she says indignantly. "You're stealing my best line."

Anna returns the smile and leads Dean by the hand, around to the back door of the Impala. Dean goes willingly, and without thinking too hard. Sure, Sam or Ruby might wander out and see them. _Let 'em_, Dean thinks a little savagely. She's not going to let it stop her, not now...not when it really could be Anna's last night on Earth. Hers, too, for that matter, if the angels make good on their threat.

Dean shuts off her brain and just lets herself _feel,_ and what she feels is that maybe Anna's right...maybe this, these parts of being human, the moments of closeness and warmth and peace...maybe they're worth it after all.


	15. Thirty: Alistair

**Warnings:** Hell-memories, some graphic descriptions of torture, self-harm, talk of rape and sexual abuse/sexual torture. I don't mean discussion...I mean a rapist taunting his past victim. Basically this is a dark chapter, with some horrible stuff going on, especially in Dean's head. You've been warned.

* * *

_You ask me to open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out._

Alistair is singing. Singing, and laughing.

Dean keeps her back turned so he can't see her face, struggling to settle her features into something hard, something implacable. Something that can do this and not feel it. She's afraid to let herself feel it again.

"I'm sorry," Alistair says from behind her, his voice a mockery of sympathy. "This is a very serious, very _emotional _situation for you. I shouldn't laugh, it's just that...I mean, are they serious? They sent _you_ to torture me?"

"Tell me who's killing the angels," she says without turning around. Alistair laughs again.

"You think I'll see all your scary toys and spill my guts?"

Dean feels the smile slide across her face, and she lets it. Alistair's not afraid of a little working over. He's going to taunt her and push her buttons until he moves her to recklessness, and then he'll use that against her somehow. She knows his tricks pretty well. The way she sees it, there's only one way she's going to make him talk. And maybe, just maybe, if she's the one to let the monster out, she can put it back in the bottle once this thing is over and done with.

She hopes.

Dean reaches out a hand and picks up a knife from the cart in front of her. It's not a particularly intimidating weapon, but that doesn't worry her. She learned a thing or two about blades in Hell. It's all in the edge. She glides this one against the pad of her thumb with feather-light pressure and watches the skin split and drops of blood weal. _Perfect._

Alistair actually cackles when she turns around. If he weren't chained with iron to a Devil's Trap, he'd probably collapse. Her smile widens. _Laugh while you can, Teach._

"You never did learn to think big," Alistair says, sounding disappointed. "You think I'm gonna talk for a little pig sticker like that?"

Dean slides forward, spine relaxed, limbs held loosely. She slips the edge of the knife across his skin, opening a thin red line, like a papercut. She imagines how it must feel: stinging like fire, and a smart like a bruise at the same time. She feels a rush of something like joy, but so much colder and heavier. It sits in the pit of her stomach, gives her weight and leverage. Her smile opens until it's all bared teeth.

"It's not about the size," she says softly. "It's all in how you use it. You oughtta know that better than anyone."

"No better than you would, lover," Alistair hisses. Dean barks a laugh.

"Oh yeah, you were a real champ," she says gleefully, reaching up to slide the knife along the tender skin behind his ear. "The only thing more forgettable was the ten-second quarterback at my last high school."

Alistair chuckles maliciously at that. "Oh Dean. I really did a number on you, didn't I. All that false bravado...smells like overcompensation to me." He gives her a grin.

"Your daddy had a good bit of that, too, y'know, but even he started to cry and beg when I got bored of the knifework and bent him over."

Dean freezes. Alistair's grin grows wider.

"I had your pop on my rack for close to a century."

"You can't stall forever, Alistair," Dean tries to cut him off, but the demon just keeps talking. He knows he's found a sore spot and he's going to press it for all it's worth.

"John Winchester. Made a good name for himself downstairs. A hundred years. After each session, I'd make him the same offer I made you: I'd put down my blade if he picked one up."

"Just give me the demon's name," she says, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. She doesn't want this in her head. She doesn't want it added to the nightmares she has already. Her own are more than enough.

"But he said no, each and every time. Oh, he might scream for me, but damned if I could break him. Pulled out all the stops, but John...he was, well, made of something _unique_. The stuff of heroes."

Dean wipes the bloody knife with the hem of her shirt and puts it down. She looks hard at her neat little arsenal, looks for the thing that will shut this bastard up.

"And then came Dean. Deanna Winchester. I though I was up against it again."

Dean closes her eyes. Opens them. Clenches her fists, unclenches. Breathes. Remembers the ever-present smell of blood and sulfur, the pain, the begging, the screaming. The feeling of helplessness and endlessness, the resignation...and the moment it all faded away into numbness, and numbness became peace, and peace became _fun._

She needs to have a little fun, that's all.

"But daddy's little girl, she broke in thirty. Just not the man your daddy wanted you to be, huh, Dean?"

Dean picks up a shot glass and the bottle of holy water.

"Holy water?" Alistair scoffs. "Come on, lover. You're gonna have to get creative to impress me."

Dean doesn't acknowledge the comment. She picks up a syringe and fills it with holy water, presses out the air, and turns.

Forty years. Forty years of torture and dreaming of revenge. Forty years of her soul being twisted and blackened by pain, inflicted upon and inflicting. Forty years of thinking up ever more creative ways she would make this animal in front of her pay back every moment, every, cut, every twinge.

"Oh believe, me, _lover,_" she whispers savagely. "I got a few ideas. Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

"Who's murdering the angels?" She demands, but she doesn't wait for an answer before she's forcing Alistair's mouth open, pouring pure salt down his throat. It steams and sizzles and he screams and chokes and screams some more, and she isn't even trying to get answers anymore, she doesn't even care who's killing the angels. This is what she needed, this is freedom, this is _fun._

Alistair tries to gargle something out through bloody teeth, and Dean steps back. Let him taunt her some more. It's hilarious to her now. He can't touch her. Those sore spots he keeps jabbing at have gone numb.

"Speak, Teach," Dean snaps. "Or I'll give you another salty surprise."

Alistair spits, blood-and-spit clumped salt on the concrete floor. "You have no idea how bad it really was," he rasps. "What you really did for us."

"Shut up," Dean drawls. "I'm already bored." She fills another container with salt, unconcerned with whatever bullshit he's spouting now.

"The whole bloody thing, Dean. The reason Lilith wanted you there in the first place."

"Learn to do as you're told," she says. She grabs Alistair's chin and forces his mouth back open, drowning whatever he was going to say in a flood of salt. She presses his mouth shut again, lets him try to scream for a few seconds more before releasing him, turning back to her cart as Alistair hacks up his lungs.

"Something caught in my throat," he grates. "I think it's my throat."

"Hope you're not tired yet," Dean says mildly. "I'm just starting to have fun." She skims a hand over her selection, looking for something she hasn't used yet. There are limits to torture on Earth that don't exist in Hell. Quite apart from the number of things that just aren't physically possible here, the human body can only take so much of what _is _possible, even when it's being inhabited by a demon. And she doesn't want him dead, oh no. She wants these moments between them to last.

"You know," Alistair says from behind her, when he's gained enough breath for speech again. "It was supposed to be your father."

Dean is only half-listening, too busy pouring out holy water. She's selected her next game.

"He was supposed to bring it on," Alistair continues. "But in the end, it was you."

"Bring what on?" Dean asks idly, humoring him.

"Every night, the same offer, remember? Same as your father. And finally you said 'sign me up.' Oh, the first time you picked up my razor...the first time you sliced into that weeping bitch..."

Dean turns around, Ruby's knife in hand, blade glistening with holy water and crusted with salt.

"That," Alistair says, leering at her with bloody teeth, "that was the first seal."

Dean goes cold inside, all the way to her bones. The haze of giddy, savage glee she's been existing in for a small eternity evaporates, and she's left with the too-sharp reality of a bare, grimy concrete room, a demon strapped to a Devil's Trap...and the truth of what she's been doing. She swallows back a wave of nausea.

"You're lying," she says, walking closer and lifting the knife as if to use it.

"And it is written that the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break." Alistair recites the words with a kind of fervor Dean would not have expected from him. Her stomach gives a sickening roll. She turns away, lowers the knife.

"We had to break the first seal before any others. Only way to get the dominoes to fall, right? Topple the one at the front of the line."

Dean takes a breath, but it doesn't feel like enough. Her chest feels compressed, she hears the blood pounding in her ears.

"When we win, when we bring on the apocalypse and burn this earth down...we'll owe it all to you, Deanna Winchester."

Dean closes her eyes. It isn't true. She won't believe it. Demons lie.

"Believe me, love," Alistair says as though he's read her thoughts, voice low and almost gentle. "I wouldn't lie about this. It's kind of a religious sort of thing with me."

Dean's hands are shaking. She grips Ruby's knife a little tighter, wills herself to calm down. She's going to kill him now, her old teacher and tormentor. But she's not going to do it because she's pissed, or because she likes it. She's going to do it because he's a demon and he needs to die. She's going to do it to stop him from doing to anyone else the awful things he's done to her.

"No...I don't think you're lying," she says, voice sounding hollow to her own ears. "But even if the demons do win, you won't be there to see it."

She turns, and he's there behind her, out of his chains and looming like a nightmare, _her_ nightmare, every bad dream she's had since she came back. Behind him, she glimpses a gap in the sigils chalked on the floor, smeared and wet with dripping water.

"You should talk to your plumber about the pipes," Alistair snarks merrily, before he takes her down with a single blow.

* * *

Everything aches, inside and out. The painkillers are keeping her from staying awake, and the pain is keeping her from getting any rest. She wishes the numbness would come back, and hates herself for wanting it at the same time. She feels sick inside, like she's already half-scorched. _Why did the angels bother to pull me out if I was already mostly demon anyway?_

"Are you alright?" Castiel. Dean cuts her eyes over to see him, looking rumpled as usual, but tired, too, and...sad. She has no room to feel bad for him.

"No thanks to you," she manages to rumble-slur through the painkillers and the rawness of a throat only recently divested of a breathing tube.

"You need to be more careful." Typical angelic prick, blaming everyone else but himself. She hates him.

"You need to learn how to manage a damn devil's trap."

"That's not what I mean," Castiel says, unfazed. "Uriel is dead."

"Was it the demons?" She'd never liked Uriel much, but it sucks to think of him as another one of theirs lost to the bad guys.

"It was disobedience," Castiel says. "He was working against us." His voice is flat, but Dean is starting to learn to pick out the emotions under the monotone. He sounds kind of like she feels right now: hollowed out and hopeless.

"Is it true?" Demons lie, and she has to know. "Did I break the first seal? Did I start all this?"

"Yes," Castiel says, a million years old and very tired. "When we discovered Lilith's plan for you, we laid siege to Hell and we fought our way to get to you before you-"

"Jump-started the apocalypse," Dean interrupts bitterly.

"And we were too late." It sounds a lot like I was too late.

"Why didn't you just leave me there, then?" _I deserved to be there. I didn't deserve to be saved. It doesn't matter how I ended up there...what I did there...I deserved to rot._

"It's not blame that falls on you, Dean, it's fate. The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it." He says it with the same reverence Alistair had when he told Dean what she'd done. "You have to stop it."

"Righteous man," she snorts. "Of course. The righteous man is the one who can finish it. Finish what. Lucifer?" She hears the angry disbelief in her own voice. "The apocalypse? What does that mean?" She sees Castiel twitch, as if ready to fly. _No._

"Hey! Don't you go disappearing on me, you sonofabitch. What does that mean?!"

Castiel almost sighs.

"I don't know."

"Bull," Dean spits. Castiel looks at her, defiance and apology, sorrow and uncertainty, exasperation and confession.

"I don't. Dean, they don't tell me much. I know our fate rests with you."

Dean wants to laugh, and she wants to cry. She wants to rewind time and let Alistair kill her for good. She wants to die in a car crash at the age of twenty-seven, maybe go to Heaven even. She wasn't so bad, once upon a time. She wasn't worth much in the grand scheme of things, but she wasn't so bad. Now, she just feels weak, and ruined.

"You guys are screwed," she says. "I can't do it, Cas. It's too big. Alistair...he...I'm not all here. I'm not...I'm not strong enough."

Castiel just watches her. He doesn't argue, and he doesn't fly. Just...looks at her, with sad old eyes and something that burns, something like faith, and she doesn't want to see it.

"I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be. Find someone else. It's not me."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Phew. I'm glad I got that one over with. I'll be on vacation starting tomorrow night, with limited access to internet and not much time to be on the computer or write, so I may not post another chapter for a while.


	16. Thirty: Adam

Their father had another son.

She didn't want to believe it, but somehow it rang true from the get-go. They did all the tests, of course: silver, salt, holy water, iron. There was no reaction to any of them. Adam is human.

Dean stares down at the photograph of John and Adam, smiling at a baseball game. His fourteenth birthday, Adam says. Dean doesn't even recall her fourteenth birthday, probably because John never marked birthdays or holidays. If they wanted them remembered, Dean and Sam had to do it themselves. That year they apparently hadn't bothered.

And yet John Winchester took this son to a baseball game for his birthday. He smiled and bought their tickets, and wore a baseball cap and acted like a normal father. Hell, he probably even bought the little bastard some peanuts and cracker jacks. And where the hell were we?

Sam was off at school, by then, Dean guesses. The man never bothered to get out of his car, walk a few yards, and tell Sam he wasn't still mad and that he loved him and he could come home anytime he wanted...but he drove to Minnesota to take some brat kid he didn't even know he had until two years before to a goddamn baseball game.

Dean takes a deep breath, determined not to let her anger at John boil over onto Adam. It's not his fault. She has to remember that. If anything, he's just one more of John Winchester's victims. His mother is missing, probably dead, and it isn't just a random twist of fate. It's because she once meant something to John.

If Dean is less than enthused about the prospect of a half-brother, Sam is a little too gung-ho about it. He keeps trying to teach Adam things that no wet-behind-the-ears pre-med student should ever need to know: how to clean a gun, how to hold it, how to load it. What kinds of tests to perform on people to make sure they're human. How to end a rougarou with a homemade flame thrower. How to cut himself off from everyone and be alone, transient, a hunter.

Adam takes it all in calmly, though he does look a little pale. His fine-boned hands accomplish the tasks Sam sets them with surgical precision. He'd be a good hunter, with a little training. He would also probably be a really good doctor.

"Sam," Dean says finally, interrupting Sam's diatribe about how Adam can't have any friends. "Can I talk to you?"

Sam gets up and follows Dean to the stairs, out of Adam's earshot. His jaw is already set, stubborn, ready for an argument. Dean sighs.

"What the hell was that?"

"What?" Sam's voice is defensive.

"All that 'hunting is life, you can't have connections' crap! Dad gave you that same speech, remember? Just before you went to Stanford."

"Yeah, so?"

"So? You hated Dad for saying that stuff, and now you're quoting him?"

"Not just him," Sam says pointedly. Dean wants to punch his face.

"Right, so is that what this is? We dumped our shit on you, and you listened to us, and now you wanna do the same thing to this poor kid, too? You didn't get your apple pie life so nobody else does either, is that it?"

"Dean..." Sam sounds as angry as Dean feels, but she watches him reign in his anger, slowly. When he speaks, his voice is controlled.

"You and Dad...you were right. No, listen to me," Sam heads Dean off before she can contradict him. "When I look at Adam, you know what I see?"

"A normal kid," Dean says.

"No," Sam counters. "Meat. Because to the demons and monsters out there, that's all he is. I hated Dad for a long time. Hell, I hated you, too. I did. But now I think I understand. So we didn't have a dog and a white picket fence...so what? Dad did right by us. You did right by me. We grew up knowing how to protect ourselves. Adam deserves the same."

"Are you kidding me? Sam...look. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for the way we grew up. I'm sorry when you got out, I didn't let you stay out. I shoulda left you at Stanford, found Dad on my own. If I could change it, I would. And I know it's too late for us. This is our life. This is who we are, fine, I accept that. I accept that it's partly my fault. But with Adam...we've got a chance to do better, man. He can go to school. Be a doctor. He can have what we shoulda had. A normal life."

Sam scoffs at her.

"A normal life? There's no such thing, Dean! I was never gonna have a normal life! Azazel decided that for me before I was even a year old! Ava, Max, Andy...they all had 'normal lives' until he was ready for them. What, d'you think if Dad had decided not to become a hunter, or given us to a normal family, Azazel would've just left me alone? That was never gonna happen! It's not real, Dean!"

"Sam-"

"The dad Adam knew, he wasn't real! What's real is what we know is out there, waiting in the shadows. The world is coming to an end. That's real. Everything else is just part of the crap people tell themselves to get through the day."

"Adam's not on the demons' radar, Sam!" Dean hates this, the fevered look in Sam's eyes, the controlled tremor in his voice, underlying his words. It's the same righteous, obsessive passion John used to have. It scared her then, and it scares her even more now. She doesn't want her brother to become a monster...but she also doesn't want him to become John. "Please, Sam...he doesn't have to be cursed."

"He's a Winchester," Sam says matter-of-factly. "He's already cursed."

"No." Dean says. She can't believe that. She won't. Whatever she feels about John and the way they were raised, she's not going to let Adam end up like they did. The kid doesn't deserve it. She looks over at him and sees a kid like Sam could've been: sweet, smart, destined for a nice life, if not a terribly adventurous one. She wants that for him. She wants to give that to him. And she will.

Sam may be hell-bent on turning Adam into a Winchester, but she's going to be the big sister to him that she should have been for Sam.

"Whatever's hunting Adam, I'm gonna find it."

"You already looked everywhere, Dean." Sam says, patient and condescending. She curls her hands into fists.

"Well, then I'll look again."

* * *

Dean stares at the funeral pyre, the acrid smoke stinging her eyes and making them tear. She had a younger brother named Adam Milligan who she never got to meet. He had a mom named Kate who raised him by herself, got him into college. He had a dad named John who was a mechanic. He was never around much, but he came into town once in awhile, for Adam's birthday, just to spend a day with him, to smile and take him to baseball games. He had a girlfriend, and friends. He was going to school to be a doctor. He never knew he had a brother and a sister who would've fought to save him. She blinks, looks down. Swallows.

"You know," she says to Sam, "I finally get why you and Dad butted heads so much. You two were practically the same person."

She feels Sam looking at her, but she doesn't lift her eyes.

"I mean, I worshipped the guy, you know? I begged him to teach me things, to take me along on hunts. I watched everything he did and tried to be just like him. I listen to the same music, I drive his car. I followed in his footsteps every way I knew how, literally to Hell and back. I used to wish I was a boy 'cause I thought that'd make him happy, make him proud of me. But you were more like him than I will ever be, and I see that now."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Sam says quietly.

"You take it any way you want," Dean shoots back, still not looking at him. She keeps her eyes on the fire, saying goodbye to the brother she never knew and wondering if the brother she grew up with is still there somewhere, behind the eyes of the angry man beside her who drinks demon blood and talks about hunting being life.

After a few minutes, Sam goes to wait in the car. Dean stays until the pyre has burned itself down to smoldering ashes.


	17. Thirty: Jimmy

Jimmy Novak is...a surprise. And a problem. And a question. Dean doesn't like him very much.

He's such a...civilian. How do you spend nine months with an angel stuffed up your ass and still act like a civilian? Dean doesn't get it. And she misses Cas. Cas, who was sneaking around in her head, trying to tell her something important. Cas, who has questions, and doubts. Who sat by her hospital bed and who has a faith in her that she doesn't understand, and fears, and cherishes. She misses the little fucker, and she wants him back.

Which makes her feel guilty as all hell, because after all, Jimmy's out. He's free. It's his body Cas has been riding around in for nearly a year. His family that's probably been thinking he was dead, or had deserted them. Either way, they've been grieving. Dean should want to get Jimmy to his family as fast as possible, and find a way to hide them from the demons. She should want to keep them all safe and far away from angels.

But she looks at Jimmy's slight, agitated frame and remembers stillness, gravity, the enormous shadow of a pair of wings. He presses his hair as flat as it will go, neatly parted to one side, and it should be messy. His tie is straight when it should be crooked. She hears his voice and it should be deeper, rougher. It should be Cas. She can't help it. She's made exceptions before, shirked duty when it interfered with family. For John. For Sam. Now she wants to do it for Cas as well.

How the hell did she let someone-let alone a freaking angel-dig in that deep?

* * *

Dean can't do much more than watch. She can't tear her eyes away, in fact. Jimmy's little girl, Claire, is glowing. Her eyes are shining a bright, familiar blue. Dean feels it from across the room. Cas. And her insides curl up till she thinks they're about to become her outsides, because this is wrong.

Claire is just a child, just a little girl. He can't do this to her. Dean can't believe he would do this to her. Even though he's an angel. Even though to angels, they're all just vessels and mudmonkeys. Even though there are more important things at stake than the life and well-being of one single little girl. Even though he took this same little girl's father away without a second thought.

But that was before. That was Castiel, Angel of the Lord. Cas is glad when Dean chooses to save a town rather than a seal. Cas was getting too close to the humans in his charge. Cas sneaked into her head to tell her to meet him somewhere they could talk in private. He was going to tell her something, against his orders.

Castiel looks down at the bleeding, dying body of Jimmy Novak through cold blue eyes.

"Please, Castiel," Jimmy gasps. "Me, just take me. Take me, please."

"I want to make sure you understand," says Castiel. Claire's little-girl voice resonates strangely. It reminds Dean, more than anything, of Lilith. She shudders. "You won't die or age. If this last year was painful for you, picture a hundred, a thousand more like it."

"It doesn't matter," Jimmy insists. "You take me. Just take me."

Dean holds her breath. Claire's little blonde head nods once, shortly. "As you wish."

She reaches out her hand to Jimmy's face. Dean has to close her eyes against the bright blue-white glow of Grace. When it fades behind her eyelids, she looks up to see Castiel standing beside her. She stands and watches as Amelia runs to her daughter, looking back to Castiel with a mingled expression of sadness and fear in her eyes. The angel holds her gaze for a moment, then turns as if to go.

"Cas," Dean says hoarsely. "Hold up. What were you gonna tell me?" There are plenty of other things she'd like to ask instead. Would you really have taken that little girl's life away? Is Jimmy okay in there? Are you still on my side?But it's the only thing she can bring herself to say. The answering voice is not what she expected, nothing she could have prepared for. Not quite emotionless. Angry. Resolute. Resentful. It doesn't sound like the voice of the angel she met in a warehouse. It's the voice she's been missing, rough and full of suppressed feeling, but the words it says just make her feel cold.

"I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean. I serve Heaven. I don't serve man, and I certainly don't serve you."

She watches him walk away with a ringing in her ears. Her brother drinks demon blood and her...whatever Cas almost was, is God's bitch again. She's alone on Earth, as usual, caught between Heaven and Hell. She could almost laugh. She could definitely throw up. She drags Sam out of the warehouse, gets in her car, and drives.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Egads, this is a hard part of the story to write. The next chapter is going to be a whopper, probably. Not sure when I'll have it up. Most likely not for a while, since it's going to cover a lot of ground as far as the canon goes. Pretty much everything in the season four finale through the first three episodes of season five. None of which is happy stuff, especially if you're in Dean Winchester's head. So yeah...it might be some time.

However...I have considered writing a few oneshots in this 'verse from other characters' points of view. The ones I'm seriously considering right now are John Winchester, Jo Harvelle, and Sam.


End file.
